Monday, September 22, 2014

"You're weird, Mom."

“NOOO!!!!!! Tribbles don’t go for walks! What are you
thinking? You have to CARRY it! I can’t believe you did that!” *insert massive
wailing*

"But I can't go to sleep! I don't have The Flu!" *insert frantic searching under the bed for a stuffed flu virus*

Or another example, the other day I was sitting on the
couch, silently minding my own business, ignoring my children, when the older
one walked over and yelled, “Mommy!” I responded calmly, “um, what?” to which
she yelled back, “I don’t want to talk to you right now!” *insert confused
blinking*

Recently we had relatives over and during some down time,
the girls were playing in the dining room area while the adults relaxed on the
couch and I puttered around the kitchen. The girls were being their usual
selves, playing their normal imaginary games. I was only half listening, just
catching stray sentences about coronations, brain eating amoebas, vampires,
time travel, etc. Then I looked at our guest sitting on the couch who
apparently had been listening in.

“Is this what you listen to all day?” she asked.

“Yup.”

To my girls, all this is completely, totally, 100% serious
stuff. To me, it is hard to not bust out laughing sometimes (a lot of the
time). There are times it gets annoying and I did have to make a “No Fighting
About Imaginary Stuff” rule, but it is usually so random that it is hard to not
just go, “wait, what did you just say?”

My mom says, among other things, kids need humor and heroes.
I totally agree. The heroes part I’ll
talk about later. The humor part seems to be one sided a lot of the time,
however, sadly. The girls are hilarious to me. What they say and do and how
they dress. I love it. I often step out of the room to laugh so they won’t
think I am laughing at them (which I am). They don’t see the humor in what they
are doing, though, which makes sense. They don’t always see humor in what I am doing
either. A lot of what I have to do is not funny. Cooking, cleaning, paying
bills, driving, laundry, and kitty litter are not especially entertaining.
Especially the bill paying. Not funny at all. And kitty litter is literally
poopy. So what do we do? How do we teach our kids that there is humor in the
world and that they don’t have to take everything so seriously? Even though
being a grown-up is blechily serious. Ugh. This is an important lesson, so it
requires extra effort no matter how serious and grown-up we feel. Here’s what
the girls’ dad and I try to do:

Goofy selfies. Trite, right? But
it never fails to make them laugh and shows them we don’t take ourselves
so seriously we are afraid to look ridiculous. Their dad is extra good at
this.

They stole my phone and I got it back
FULL of pictures like this.

Horrible dancing. This is not
hard. Good dancing is hard. Horrible dancing is just fun. All we have to
do is, again, not take ourselves super seriously. I have a really bad
back, so sometimes this one is actually painful, but the pay off is worth
it when the girls join in and relax. Enjoying being alive is a good thing.

Decorate however we want.

Watching some tv with Pillow Nana

We do
like HGTV and decorating magazines, books, and blogs. My older daughter
stole my copy of Young House Love and has already planned her own
first house. But when it comes to decorating our own home, we don’t mind
mixing walruses, dinosaurs, and skulls. Those things make us happy, so
that is what we put out. All year. We tell the girls we decorate to make
ourselves smile. And we do. It is hard to not smile when I look around my
living room and see a crazy blend of Polish folk art, Ukrainian
embroidery, a giant robotic triceratops, a life size stuffed version of my
mom (not taxidermy . . . like a rag
doll . . . slightly less creepy), my Jane Austen action figure, a sparkly
purple skull, etc. To others I’m sure it is a random clutter of things
that make them say, “um, what’s that?” (I’m sure because they do say that
when they come here and see Pillow Nana), but to us it is our home.

Sing along with songs we like. We
can’t sing. Really. We’re not musically talented at all. A lot of the time
it is just lip syncing. But it’s fun. And often drives the girls nuts.
Which is just extra fun. So when we hear a song we like, we go along with
it. I admit, whenever I hear Eye of the Tiger, I bust out not only my best
lip syncing but also my super awesome horrible dancing. Actually, I have
pretty much these same dance moves (although my car isn’t as cool):

Our end goal is simple. We want
the girls to be happy. Life is full of bad stuff. There is disease and war and natural
disasters. There are also all the little things that drain us day to day like
bullies, annoying people, boring tasks, stresses, etc. We need to learn how to
focus on the joy whenever we can. They can’t always see how funny and silly
their little lives our, so as grown-ups we have to show them it is ok to laugh
and give them things to laugh at.

We have to show them not everything has to be
super serious because there are enough serious things already. So put that
goofy hat on for no reason other than to make a kid smile. Don’t worry about
looking like a doofus.

Dance like Elaine. Go on. Right now. Or when you pick your kids up from school. Or in the grocery store.

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About Me

I am a former retreat leader and current mother of three loving that I get to spend all day with my daughters. I'm using my limited free time to blog about my happy walrus mom adventure and give my brain a chance to vent. You can keep up to date on blog posts by following me on Twitter - @HappyWalrusMom